


where have you been?

by boltlightning



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Sibling Bonding, it's the end of the banker plot but with emotional catharsis, set within Brotherhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25513030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boltlightning/pseuds/boltlightning
Summary: “Aren’t you tired of running? Don’t you wish you had time to sit and…” Claudia grasps for the word. “Sit and grieve everything that gets left behind? Mother and I have had time. What about you?”Ezio and Claudia talk it out.
Relationships: Claudia Auditore da Firenze & Ezio Auditore da Firenze
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	where have you been?

**Author's Note:**

> this takes place at the very end of sequence 5, and wraps up the end of the banker takedown/the weird side plot where ezio and claudia were snapping at each other but never actually addressed it. i could not rest until i discussed ezio's terrible problem with emotional repression.
> 
> begins immediately after the banker is killed and ezio makes it back to the rosa in fiore.

“They followed us home,” the courtesan chokes out. She holds her weeping friend, both of them shaking. “They went inside, Ezio, we didn’t see—”

Ezio doesn’t wait for her to finish. An old fear bubbles up in him, buried deep beneath his decades of traveling about Italy. He sees in his mind’s eye the door of Villa Auditore loose on its hinges, his father’s empty office, an inconsolable Maria sitting on the bench in their courtyard. Ezio’s vision spins as he forces the door open.

Death greets him in the foyer. Claudia wields a knife backhanded, and two Borgia guards lay dead at her feet. She schools her face into neutrality and steadies her breathing as Ezio enters.

“So,” he says slowly. He covers his relief with an observation: “My sister knows how to wield a knife.”

Claudia smiles, and spins the knife handle in her hand so it is upright. “And I’m ready to do it again,” she says.

“Spoken like a true Auditore. Where did you learn to do that?”

“Uncle Mario’s soldiers,” she answers easily. She tucks the knife into the thin belt at her waist and kneels to close the eyes of one of the guards. “You missed a lot when you were traveling.”

Ezio lets that hang, not sure what to say. He and Claudia had spoken in passing during his years chasing the Pazzi and eventually the Templars — fondly, but distantly. “Let me help clean up,” he says finally. “You have done enough for me tonight.”

As he bends to lift the guard by the arm, he winces. In his flight from the Castella, a guard had nicked him with a polearm just along the ribs. It was a glancing blow, and medicine had numbed the pain, but it is fresh enough to make his task difficult.

“You’re hurt.” Claudia frowns in his direction. Ezio responds by hoisting the body of one man up on his opposite shoulder, pulling the wound in the process.

“I’ll live. I've lived through much worse.”

“Oh? Perhaps it is _I_ who missed a lot when you were traveling.”

Ezio heads towards the door. “I am dumping these men in the river. If you can find some buckets…”

“Ah, good idea. I’ll meet you at the waterway.”

He shoulders his way gracelessly out the backdoor. The humid summer nights of Rome were abating as fall neared, and the breeze off the Tiber is a balm. As soon as the bodies have been disposed of, Ezio stands in the bracing air and realizes he _reeks._ The fumes from the festival and the metallic tang of blood cling to his clothes. Perhaps it is the wound at his side or the sight of his sister doing exactly what he had been trying to hide from her for years, but he suddenly feels ill.

He sits on the wall over the Tiber, pulls off his hood and unbuckles his armor, then gingerly peels off his outer coat. The fabric stuck to the wound tugs painfully as he pulls it off, but at least he will not smell like the bad end of a seedy tavern anymore. A hand on his wound, his face to the wind, Ezio takes a moment to do what he rarely has time to do: reflect.

Claudia is a grown woman. She had her formative years stripped from her just as he had, living without knowing when and who would come to take their safety away again. Of course she knew how to defend herself; Mario wouldn’t have let her be defenseless. Of course she can handle herself against Borgia thugs; she manages a careful network of spies and keeps her courtesans safe with little help from the Assassins. Why is it surprising she can kill? Why is he as impressed as he is wary?

Some part of him has boxed up Claudia with his few remaining good memories of Florence. That Claudia lived was a reminder that some part of him was still a teenage boy living life to the fullest in the streets, beating up bullies, flirting relentlessly with any girl who looked his way, racing across terracotta rooftops with a brother just as carefree as he. Claudia was proof that _someone_ experienced childhood with him, that not all of it was tainted by the Templars.

She could kill just as ruthlessly as he. And she likely had before.

Ezio does not jump when Claudia approaches from behind — his eagle senses make surprises impossible — but he does not react immediately. Quietly, she pulls herself up on the ledge next to him.

“Ezio. You aren’t helping me clean.” Her voice is light, but she sits with her knees to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. She doesn’t quite meet his eyes.

“I will in a second.” He pulls his hand away from his side, where blood stains the white of his undershirt. “Just wanted a moment to breathe.”

There is tension between them, but neither want to break the silence. Finally, Ezio gives in. “I've not been fair to you, Claudia. You or Mother. I've worked alone for so long. I prefer...to take tasks on myself.” _To make sure the dirty work is done by my own hands. To see it through with my own eyes. To protect those who might get caught in the wake of my mistakes._ “I did not mean to insult you.”

“Ezio,” she says stiffly, “you're not alone anymore. You have Assassins, and you have us. All in the same city again.” Claudia reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder. “You work in the shadows, but...you know you don’t have to hide from us too, you idiot.”

He snorts. Well-deserved. “I know. I’m sorry, Claudia.”

“I am too.”

“Oh? What for?”

Claudia takes a deep breath and looks over the inky river without seeing it. Her eyes are distant. “Well, we had to flee Florence to avoid being killed. We had to flee Monteriggioni to avoid being killed. Aren’t you tired of running? Don’t you wish you had time to sit and…” She grasps for the word. “Sit and grieve everything that gets left behind? Mother and I have had time. What about you?”

He hadn’t. _These_ moments are his time, when he is not chasing down corrupt guards or bailing out courtesans from nasty situations or tailing politicians around Rome. Claudia takes his silence to continue.

“I missed you, Ezio,” she says softly. “I don’t know where you’ve been. Now that we’re finally in the same place, I thought…”

“I know.” He closes his eyes. “I am sorry. Again.”

Tentatively, she presses further. “What happened while you were gone? I read your letters...I know the broadest strokes. Who died and what it accomplished. But what about you? What was my brother up to?”

Lord in Heaven, what a loaded question. What could he tell her? So many of his adventures through Italy had been condensed in reports to Mario, and everything else he had bottled up and buried deep. He sees Mario dead at Cesare’s feet. Rodrigo Borgia’s blood on his bruised knuckles. Cristina Vespucci bleeding in his arms in some alley in Florence hidden from Savonarola’s men, his necklace clutched in her fingers. The Orsi brothers holding knives to Caterina’s children’s necks. Standing bloody and beaten at Festivale, a stranger in a strange city, knowing he has to kill the Doge that night. Dueling with Vieri de’Pazzi on the battlements of San Gimignano, and being left with only questions and bitterness on his tongue. 

Ezio swallows this down, as he has time and time again. He offers something safer. “Do you remember Petruccio’s collection of feathers?”

“Yes,” Claudia answers immediately. “Mother still takes that box of them with her whenever we need to run…and it was 18 years ago. Why?”

“I still collect them.” He grins sideways at her. “If I see a feather falling, ah...I’m always on rooftops anyway. Why not grab them?”

The look Claudia gives him is puzzled, then breaks into a smile. “You sentimental buffoon,” she sighs. “At your age? If you slip off those roofs, you’ll break your back.”

“I’ve fallen off my share of roofs,” he scoffs. “Are you calling me old, Claudia?”

“I am,” she says, haughtily lifting her nose in the air. Ezio laughs, and it feels _good_ to share moments like these. “I suppose Petruccio would be happy. He would have loved to be out there running with you and Federico.”

“I went back, you know,” Ezio says suddenly. His voice drops, and Claudia looks to him with surprise. “After they...passed. I went back to get their bodies and give them last rites.” _With Cristina, who died later_ , he adds to himself. _I gave her last rites, too._

“I...thank you, Ezio.” Claudia shifts, lowering her feet so they dangle just above the water. “I always wondered.”

They sit in silence for a bit, and Ezio takes the opportunity to fill one of the buckets Claudia had brought. He had almost forgotten why he came down to the river at all. His wound objects with a spike of pain as he leans down, and he barely stifles a gasp of pain.

“You said you’d survived worse,” Claudia says. His back is to her as she asks, “You were shot at Monteriggioni...were you talking about something else?”

“Yes.” He hauls the bucket onto solid land. “In Forlí...I was stabbed by a target as I stabbed him.”

Claudia stares at him. “I remember. You stopped sending letters for weeks.”

“Caterina's men found me dying on the road. She nursed me back to health herself.”

“She did?” Claudia thinks for a moment, putting the pieces together. “That explains why you two were close.”

Ezio pauses briefly. Caterina had left Rome just two weeks prior, returning to her lands and children after he had carried her out of the Castella. She had used his affections to get reinforcements against the Borgia threat. _I had to ensure our allegiance to protect Forlí. Do you understand, Ezio?_ she had said, breathless from pain in his arms as he sprinted through enemy territory. It was a cold reminder. Had she been trying to get him to give her up, so he would escape safely without her? Or did she simply want to set the record straight?

She was foolish either way; she should have known he would carry her to safety regardless. _É la politica. Of course. I knew it. You need not explain._ And he had fought tooth and nail against Borgia and French troops to get them both out alive.

He had suspected her intentions. It still stung, and he had had very little time to move on — and now he made sure their allegiance was unshakable.

“Yes,” he answers at length. “I suppose it does.”

He is saved any more painful questions when their mother pokes her head out the backdoor. She smiles at the sight of them chatting, and breathes a sigh of visible relief. “It is good to see you two have come to your senses,” she says, and smiles bright enough to light up all of Rome. “Is it safe to let the girls back in the building?”

“Safe but messy,” Ezio answers for them both. He picks up one bucket of water and gestures for Claudia to grab the other. “We’ll get to it. Maybe have them enter from a different entrance.”

Maria bobs her head and slips back into the door. Claudia drags the pail forward and jerks her head towards the door. “We can talk more inside, if you like,” she says. Her voice is strained by the effort of lifting the water; Ezio hoists it up with his free hand as he passes.

“I have this. Go on ahead.”

He smirks at her reproachful glare, and she gives his arm a playful smack as she walks past. Ezio deposits the water in the foyer while Claudia runs to grab rags, then slips back out the door to retrieve his armor.

Stars light the Tiber, their brilliance echoed in the warm lantern light of the city. Ezio takes a moment to look over Rome from where he stands. Guards still patrol the district, but he is wrestling Rome from the Borgia inch by desperate inch. Ezio spots a recruit checking mail at the nearest pigeon coop; a courtesan and a thief, exchanging information in an alley nearby, greet him with small nods.

Ezio breathes in the night air. _You are not alone,_ Claudia’s words echo. Perhaps he never had been.

He stretches as far as he dares without tearing his wound open further. Claudia was right in another way — he is getting old, and is not looking forward to a night crouched over scrubbing blood out of the grout. He releases his stretch with a sigh, gives Rome another fond sweeping glance, and heads inside.


End file.
